With “Music to My Ears,” Yes continues to seesaw between song ideas that clearly sprang from individual members. This isn’t necessarily their fault, of course, since pandemic countermeasures kept the entire lineup from working together in the studio. But it gives 2021’s The Quest an episodic nature, as if it’s been compiled rather than recorded as a collective narrative.
This is obviously a Steve Howe contribution, and not just because of the delicate acoustic figure that opens “Music to My Ears,” or the gusts of electric notes that keep gathering and then dissipating about two thirds of the way through. The track also continues an emerging vocal-duet concept with Jon Davison that Howe began on his 2020 solo album Love Is, where the current Yes frontman sang on five of 10 tracks.
The results on “Music to My Ears” are pleasant enough, with the notable exception of the vocal-duet part. To be fair, singing together seems to have been the ever-amiable Davison’s idea, but Howe is to blame for making it such a prominent element of two consecutive studio projects.
“I invited him to do harmony on my songs, and play bass on them as well – because he’s a very, very fine bass player,” Howe told Classic Album Review. “Funny enough, in those songs that we credit as a duet vocals, they really came about as more of a surprise. So, when I present a track, I’ve got to present what’s available, so I presented it with my vocal – and Jon said, ‘I like that; maybe I can sing with this.'”
As on Love Is, Davison proves to be a nimble foil. He gives “Music to My Ears” a light-filled gravitas that the song’s insubstantial subject matter otherwise couldn’t manage. When it comes to singing, however, Howe remains a brilliant guitarist.
Jon Davison’s gossamer performance here is continuously dragged down by Howe’s insistence on taking one step over to join him on the mic – just as it so often was with Love Is. On what can only be called a vanity project, that’s a perfectly acceptable decision. But this is the 22nd LP by a legacy group, not a solo side trip.
Now serving as producer, Howe falls prey to ego by mixing his darkening, gruff, and occasionally almost untuneful voice far too high in the mix on a Yes album. It’s sometimes on equal sonic footing with Davison, and other times seems to move distractingly to the fore. This would never have happened, and with good reason, in a previous era when Yes co-founder Jon Anderson was around to push back.
The shame of it all: “Music to My Ears” actually stands on pretty solid musical footing. Instrumentally, Steve Howe sticks with his trusty Gibson ES-175 – though, in a parallel with the vocals, he also adds another voice by using a Stratocaster for the harmony. (“Less isn’t always more,” Howe recently quipped in a talk with Music Radar. “Sometimes more is more.”) The song builds with grace and small intrigues.
Certainty that a concluding lyrical duet will return, however, begins to draw up no small amount of dread, even as Howe climbs a soaring ladder of imagination on guitar and Geoff Downes thrillingly skitters by on the keys. “Music to My Ears” then dissolves into another missed opportunity.
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